Now That's A Mother I'd Like To
by scubysnak
Summary: What if Alex had another reason for not contacting Liv when she got out of WPP three years ago? How will Liv deal with the revelation? A/O Chapter 3 up
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…**

_A/N: I've had this idea in my head and I wanted to see where it would go. I haven't been able to write in forever because of yearbook, national boards, or some other lame work-related adventure. So, here goes…._

"What was that all about?" Elliot asked as we climbed back in the cruiser.

I slammed my head back against the seat and squeezed my eyes shut, ignoring his question.

"So you're going to ignore me now? Not answer? Alright."

I felt the car lurch forward as we pulled into traffic. I couldn't wait for this day to be over with and it had barely started.

"You know, I figured you would have…"

"I would have what, El? Jumped up and down for joy that she was back? Threw myself at her? Acted like some love-sick teenager who was still pining away for her? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint ya, but it's not happening."

I turned to look at the window at the passing brownstones whizzing past the cruiser and let out a deep sigh and added quietly, "She looked good though, didn't she?"

I saw his reflection in the glass as he eyed me, a sly smile gracing his face. "Yeah, she did, Liv. Yeah, she did."

Not another word was spoken the rest of our drive back to the 1-6.

XXXX

"Did you notice how cool she was about everything? I'm tellin' ya man, the Ice Queen is back. I'd be afraid to stand to close that—might catch a terminal case of frostbite." Fin tossed a folder and rolled his seat backwards before standing up and moving toward the coffee pot.

Munch flipped through the file before standing and walking to the board and adding some more information about their case. "Seldom, if ever, does someone come out of Witness Protection. Put yourself in her position. She was yanked from her life and forced to live in whatever backwoods Podunk town they put her in. She had to adopt the persona of someone they created. You have to go a little cold to survive that."

"Still man, ya'd expect her to have thawed a bit since coming back."

"Would you two shut up?" I asked, my voice a bit harsher than it needed to be.

"She ain't never contact you, Liv? You two were pretty tight, weren't you?"

Leave it to Fin to go for the jugular without knowing it. I slammed my fists down on my desk and stormed up to the crib, taking the stairs two at a time.

"I need some rest. Wake me when Warner calls with our prelims," I shouted over my shoulder before slamming the door shut behind me.

I closed the blinds and turned off the lights before falling down on the nearest bunk. Sleep was a long time coming. Images floated through my mind, keeping sleep just at the periphery for what seemed like an eternity.

The way Alex looked so busted when she suggested we go out…without the guys….and I asked if it was a date. The way her hair felt like silk against my fingertips. The way her lips parted just enough for my tongue to move against hers. The soft whimpering noises she would make as I'd kiss my way along her neck. The look of shock when I told her I loved her for the first time. The way her blood seeped through my fingers as I tried desperately to keep it in her and off of the sidewalk. The way we made love with an urgency but passion we had never had before when she came back for the Connors' trial.

It was that memory that finally lulled me to sleep. I had clung to that memory for four years. Four long years. I knew that about a year after that, she was back. The DA made her a bureau chief for a bunch of lawyers that couldn't find their own briefs much less file them. Daily, I fought the desire, no, the primal need, to contact her, to rekindle what we had. I knew that she needed time and space. She had dealt with what happened to her away from her friends and coworkers and coming back to them was bound to dredge up memories. Memories she'd need time to deal with--even if that was time away from me.

I felt the thin mattress of the bunk dip as weight was added beside me. Fingers brushed through my hair and across my cheek. I was not yet coherent enough to understand what she was saying to me and before I could shake myself awake and ask her to repeat it, her phone rang. I felt the bed rise a bit as she stood up and moved toward a corner of the room.

"Cabot….oh, hey sweetie…yes, I know…okay…well, I'll be home as soon as I can, alright?...I know…I love you, too."

At those words leaving her lips, the little bit of hope that had been holding me together crumbled. I heard her snap the phone shut and her heels clicked as she moved back over to where she thought I was still sleeping. As soon as her fingers touched my skin, I recoiled, my eyes flying open but avoiding hers.

"You're awake," she said quietly, her fingers moving down over my arm. "I'm sorry. I thought my phone was set to vibrate. I didn't want to wake you. Elliot said you were up here trying to sleep."

"Yeah, I was," I muttered angrily as I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bunk, my back now to her. "Was there something you needed, Counselor?"

"Counselor? You haven't called me Counselor in years, Liv." Her voice was controlled and quiet, bereft of the emotions that were stirring in me. "There wasn't much time for us to talk at the scene and I thought that…"

"…that we could do that now? That you could come into the precinct and what? We'd talk like we should have three years ago?"

"Liv," she soothed quietly as she placed a hand on my shoulder and turned me to face her. "I'm sorry I hurt you. That was never my intention. Coming home was unexpected and there were," she paused, "mitigating circumstances to me not contacting you."

I stood up and moved away from her. The closeness I had so long desired and needed was now tainted by the phone call I had overheard. I couldn't bring myself to look at her. If I did, I'd crumble.

"You're seeing someone else?"

Her laugh echoed around the room, "No, Liv, I'm not."

I spun around, indignant that she'd lie to me like that. "I heard you, Al. On the phone just a few minutes ago. _Sweetie…I'll be home as soon as I can…I love you._ Please, don't add insult to injury. It's okay if you moved on. It's not like either of us expected you to come back. I know you function much better as part of a couple than as a single person. But you could have been honest. A phone call. _Hey Liv, I'm with someone else now but it was good while it lasted, right?_ That's all I needed. I think I deserved at least that much."

"Are you done? I'd hate to interrupt this trip of self-pity you seem to be enjoying so much." When she was met with silence, she continued. "I said there were mitigating circumstances. I didn't say there was someone else."

"Then how do you explain the phone call I just overheard? It wasn't your mother because she passed away. You don't speak that way to your friends and your family's blood is too blue to be that warm with each other on the phone."

She tossed her phone at me and as unexpected as the action was, my reflexes kicked in and I caught it.

"What do you want me to do with your phone, Counselor?"

"I want you to look at the pictures on my phone, Liv. Look at them. Because just like always, you're reacting without knowing all the facts. I would think that as an officer of the law you'd have learned by now that the consequences can be deadly."

"I don't need to see pictures of you and your…your…lover."

"God dammit, Liv," she shouted at me as she came over and snatched the phone from me, quickly moving over the touchpad and bringing up her pictures.

I didn't bother to look at the pictures. I tossed her phone on the bunk I had been sleeping on and stormed down the stairs, leaving the door to bang against the wall in the crib.

No sooner had my feet hit the floor than she shouted down, "I was talking to my son, Liv! I have children!"

I froze. Every head in the office turned and looked up at her. Everyone except me. Off to my right I heard Fin say, "Now that's one mother I'd like to…"

I swung around and lit into him before he had a chance to finish. "If you ever want to be able to do that again, you won't finish that statement. Understand?"

He just nodded silently (and knowingly) as Munch grabbed him by the arm and led him away. "We've got a lead, partner. Let's go check it out."

I looked around to see Elliot looking down and studying a file on his desk. Other detectives began to go back to their work, filling the office with sounds of phones ringing, printers printing, and coffee percolating.

I slowly turned around and headed back up the stairs, brushing past her and back into the crib. I walked over to the bunk and picked up her phone. I turned my back to her and heard the door shut. Her heels echoed across the floor in my direction.

"That's Oliver. Oliver Benson. I call him Ben. He's adorable. Give his sister hell though. Would just as soon turn blue as be nice to her."

I moved my finger over the screen to the next picture. There was a blonde-haired, blue eyed carbon copy of the woman standing behind me.

"That's Allie. Lauren Alexandria. That's Ben's twin. Like you couldn't tell from looking at her. She's into everything. If I leave anything out that can be taken apart, she finds a way to do it. I don't know where she got that. "

I could hear the warmth in her voice as she talked about her kids. I kept flipping through the pictures, stopping at one with Alex, Ben, Allie and another child I noticed.

"You remember Antonio? He's still with me. He's twelve now. I don't know how I'd have managed without him. At first they wanted to put him with a family, but I argued and fought. And you know how convincing I can be." She slipped her arms around my waist and tucked her chin on my shoulder.

"They're beautiful, Al. I…why…how…."

"I'll answer all of your questions, Liv. I promise. Just…don't yell and don't call me a liar. I've never been anything but honest with you." She squeezed me tightly as I continued to thumb through the pictures, coming to a very old picture of me kissing her on her cheek.

"That's a horrible picture. Look at my hair. I had bed head," I pouted.

"And I had JBF hair. You don't hear me complaining," her lips fluttered over my neck and my knees almost gave way.

"I never once heard you complain about having JBF hair, Al." I turned around and handed her phone back to her. "You told your kids you'd be home soon. You should get going. It's late."

She bit her lip and was obviously struggling with something.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Come home with me. Well, not home with me. But in an hour or so, stop by? That'll give me a chance to get the kids settled into bed and then we can talk. I want to give you the answers you deserve…even if they are three years too late."

I ran my hand through my hair, struggling with the right decision.

She reached out and tucked some hair behind my ear, "And while you're there we can talk about getting you into see a stylist and getting a haircut."

All I could was nod shyly as she leaned forward to kiss my cheek and then scribbled her address on a card.

She went to hand it to me but I waved it off. "I, uh, know where you live, Al. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

As she disappeared down the stairs and out the swinging doors, I collapsed on the bed, giving voice to the thoughts in my head. "Alex is a mom. A real honest to goodness mom. Shit," I slapped my hand against my forehead. "That's why she didn't want me to be a part of her life. She thinks…she thinks I'd hurt them. That I'd be like my mom or my father."

I stood up and headed downstairs. I didn't speak to anyone as I grabbed my jacket and headed out for the evening. I heard Elliot calling me behind me as the elevator doors shut, but I didn't want to deal with him. The last thing I wanted was him playing big brother. I reached into my jacket and turned off my cell as I stepped out onto the sidewalk.

I hailed a cab and gave him the address of the seediest bar I frequented.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…**

A/N: I was feeling particularly playful with this one.

"Liv."

I felt myself being gently shaken and rolled over. "A few more minutes of sleep and then I promise I got one more in me, baby."

"Dammit, Liv. You better be imagining you're talking about somebody other than my daughter since you're in her apartment."

As the realization that it was Elliot trying to wake me dawned on me, my eyes flew open and I slid up to a sitting position on the bed I was in. My eyes darted around the room. My jeans, jacket and what looked like the rest of my clothes were tossed over a chair in the corner of the room. I pulled the sheet up tighter over me.

"Oh, now you're gonna be modest? You're almost naked in my daughter's apartment…in her bed. Liv, what the hell are you doing? And it better not be my daughter, 'cause if it is, I swear no one will ever find your body."

I blinked rapidly, trying to piece together the events since I had climbed out of that taxi and walked into that bar.

"Dad," Maureen said as she plopped down on the bed beside me, "Liv sleeps here a couple of nights a week after she's tied one on at the bar around the corner."

"So you two aren't…?" he motioned between us.

Maureen turned and leered at me. I swear, if I was twenty, no, make that ten, years younger and she looked at me like that she'd have been screaming my name all night long. I shake my head to clear that thought from it.

"Don't look at her like that! She's practically family!" He yelled at Maureen as he waved his hand in front of her face. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up, pushing her out of the room.

"You," he pointed at me. "Get up and get dressed. NOW!"

The door being shut as the two left the room didn't keep me from hearing every word of their conversation. Maureen told him this had been going on for a couple of years now and that once or twice a week I'd get totally shit-faced and come buzzing for her to ring me up. Guilt and nausea were overtaking me. I'd been using Maureen. She probably knew more about what I'd been feeling the last couple of years than anyone else did—even her dad.

As I pulled my socks on, I fought the dark recesses of my drunken to make sure I hadn't done anything that would result in my untimely demise at the hands of my partner.

The door flew open and Elliot came back in. "Liv, seriously, I love you, but she's my kids. If you…"

"I didn't, El," I stood up and grabbed my jacket. "How'd you know I was here?"

"Mo answered your phone. And then tried to play dumb. Like I wouldn't recognize my own kid's voice. You hear that, Maureen? I'm a cop! I'm not stupid."

"I'm sure even my neighbors hear you, Dad."

The young blonde leaned against the doorframe in her bedroom.

"Don't you have a class to go to or a job or something?" Elliot asked angrily.

Maureen rolled her eyes and tossed my phone to me. "Call me the next time you're in the neighborhood, Liv."

"No you don't," he said as he pointed at me before turning to her, "No she won't. She won't call you again."

"Chill, Dad. You can't control who I see."

Whoa! Who she sees? I cleared my throat and tucked my phone into my pocket, "Yeah, El. No problem."

I pulled my jacket on and brushed past Elliot and Maureen to step into the living room.

"Hey, Livvy, don't forget your handcuffs," Maureen came out after me and handed them to me. "You, uh," she turned to look at her dad, "left them on the headboard."

Elliot turned purple as he stormed past both of us and flung the door open.

"You're gonna give your dad a coronary, Mo. What the hell are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that me answering your phone when Dad called is the least of your problems today," she said innocently.

I got one of those knots in my stomach accompanied by my blood turning to ice. "Maureen, what did you do?"

"Please don't be mad. But she called not too long after you passed out. And I answered the phone."

"She?" I knew who Mo was referring to. I was supposed to show up at Alex's apartment last night and never did.

"Yeah, 'she'. Alex."

"Fuck."

"Hey, it's not as bad as you think. I told her who I was. Surely she knows you wouldn't fuck your partner's kid, right?"

The honking from the street brought me back to the present.

"I, uh, gotta go, Mo. Your dad is already gonna have my ass."

As I walked out the door, she called after me.

"Liv, you know if you were anybody but my dad's partner…"

I blushed and looked down at my shoes, and before I could respond she went on, "I know I still wouldn't stand a chance though since I'm not Alex." She paused before continuing, "Doesn't mean that I don't like to scare the shit out of the old man every now and then, though."

I took the three flights of stairs down to the street and climbed into the car with Elliot.

"El," I needed to explain myself to him.

"Liv, don't worry about it. I'm not pissed with you. She's just trying to get under my skin. The whole _daddy I like boys and girls_ thing didn't piss me off bad enough, so now she's pushing every other button I got. I swear, she's worse than a teenager again. I've got fewer problems out of Dickie and Lizzie than out of her. As if things weren't bad enough with Kathleen she wants to play games and get you into 'em, too. Damn, kids."

"So you're not mad? We're cool?" This was way too easy and not the fight I had expected.

"Yeah, we're cool, but if I ever find out you laid a finger on her…"

XXXX

I had Elliot drop me off at my apartment. I needed to shower and change. Showing up for work in what I had worn the day before would not be a good move, especially when I was bound to run into Alex. I was already going to have enough explaining and back-pedaling to do.

Two hours later I had joined El at the station and was in the observation area watching him interrogate a suspect when Alex walked in with Cragen.

"Any particular reason you're not in there with El, Liv?"

"The guy seems to have a problem with women. Thought I'd let El handle him," I offered Cragen.

"Alex, Liv. If there's anything either of you need, I'll be in my office. No sense in all three of us sharing air, right?"

Once Cragen left the room, the temperature and the tension increased exponentially. Alex reached over and turned the volume down on the interview room so that we couldn't hear what was being said, but we kept our eyes on the scene in front of us the entire time.

"You know, I expected you last night. You said you'd come over. Did something happen to keep you away? Perhaps someone?" Her tone wasn't angry, but her body was stiff. She had always possessed the ability to keep her voice neutral, but anyone who really knew her could tell from her body language that she was upset.

"Al," I put my hand on the small of her back as I moved closer to her. If it was possible for her to stiffen even more, she did and I pulled my hand back, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. "Yesterday was just too much for me to deal with. I know I said I'd come over, but…"

"But you went out and got drunk and then crawled over to your partner's daughter's apartment. She answered your phone, Olivia. Are you," she lowered her voice and looked suspiciously around the room that we were alone in before continuing, "sleeping with her? Does Elliot know? I have to tell you, if someone I was working with ever even looked at my kids like they wanted them I'd have their balls as toys for my cat."

"I'm not sleeping with her. I haven't slept with anyone…in a very long time, Al."

There was a mixture of sadness and relief in her blue eyes at my revelation. Questions that she wanted to ask would have to go unanswered for now as Elliot picked that moment to swing the door open and come out. He paused, looking from Alex to me and then back to Alex, a Cheshire grin plastered across his face.

"Am I interrupting something here, ladies?"

Alex chose to ignore the question he asked, opting to bring the conversation back to the case at hand.

"Did he confess?" she asked coolly as she walked back into the interrogation room with Elliot.

XXXX

Darkness had descended on the city and snow had begun to flutter down and coat everything in a thin layer of white. By morning, the pristine white would be replaced by grimy grey and black sludge and people who were wonderstruck with awe at the unexpected spring snow tonight would curse its inconvenience.

I pulled open the door to the lobby and walked in.

"Detective Benson, it's been a while. What? Three? Four Months since your last visit? You actually planning on going up this time or are you going to stand here and thaw out before chickening out again?" Harry, as he had insisted I call him, had been friendly every time I worked up the nerve to show up at the apartment building.

"Actually, it's been six months, Harry. How's your wife?"

The older man shook his head as he put his hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed, guiding me toward the elevator. "The missus isn't as spry as she used to be, Detective. She's had to cut back to only three games of racquetball a week at the senior's center. I keep insisting she act her age and take up Bridge or bake cookies with the grandkids, but she still thinks she's, well, your age."

We both laughed.

When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, he gently pushed me inside and reached in to push the button for the correct floor.

I put my hand out and held the doors open. "Does she know?"

He pulled his hat off and straightened the few remaining hairs on his head and smiled, "Does she know what?"

I ducked my head and smiled sheepishly. "How many times I've come here and never worked up the nerve to actually go up?"

He gently pushed my hand off the door and as they started to close he said, "Huh? You've been here before? Never saw you before tonight, Detective."


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…**

When the elevator arrived at her floor, the doors opened with a ding and I froze. I waited so long that the doors began to shut, prompting me to lunge out and into the hallway. I stood fixed to the spot, trying to remember why I had decided to show up unannounced & unexpected. Only when my cell started to vibrate on my hip did I realize I still hadn't moved. I pulled it free and looked at the caller—Alex. I accepted the call and slowly began to walk to the end of the hall toward her door.

"Benson."

"Liv. Hey, it's me."

I can't help the smile that tugs at my lips.

"Hey, look, I'm about to knock on someone's door. Can I call you back in a bit?"

I was now standing immediately outside her door. As soon as she responded, I would knock on the door.

"Paying Miss Stabler another visit, Detective?" I didn't take the bait and she continued, "Whatever Liv. Just don't call too late. The kids are already down for the evening."

With that, I knocked lightly on her door.

"Sounds like you have company."

I could picture her eyebrow rising in confusion because there was no way I'd hear that knock through her phone.

The door swung open and there stood Alex wearing yoga pants and a Harvard t-shirt that had seen better days.

I closed my phone and shoved my hands in my pockets, rethinking my decision for the second time in as many minutes. A slow smile crept across her face, making her appear years younger and, if possible, even more beautiful.

She reached out for my hand and I gave it to her. Tugging gently, she pulled me into her apartment and shut the door behind me.

I shrugged my jacket off and tossed it across a nearby chair. I had been in this very apartment a number of times before, but now it was different. Gone was the white carpet and obtrusive white furniture. The large, bold paintings that once hung on her white walls were no longer there. Now, family photos adorned nearly ever surface and forgiving wooden floors sat underneath well-worn furniture. It no longer felt utilitarian—cold—uninhabited. Now, there was warmth and a lived-in quality it had previously not possessed.

"Different from the last time you were, isn't it?"

"What happened to the horrible furniture and all of those paintings that, how did you put it, beg to be hung in a home by someone who would appreciate them the way they were meant to be appreciated?"

She smiled sadly before looking at me expectantly.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry, Al. I guess almost everything you had was sold, given away or trashed by your mother when you entered the program."

She pulled her arms around herself and nodded in the affirmative. "Only the apartment remained. It was part of the estate and luckily the executor hadn't yet disposed of it since it was being leased to someone. Although I could have moved back to the Cabot Manor, this just felt more like home to me. There were so many good memories in this place. It felt right to keep adding to them. Know what I mean?"

"So are the crayon drawings from the waist down on your walls your attempt to support a local starving artist?" I needed to lighten the mood after my little faux pas about the furniture and paintings.

"I'd hardly call Ben or Allie starving. Those little imps would eat me out of house and home if they were given the opportunity. I can't tell you how many times I scrubbed the walls clean of crayons before I finally gave in. I hope it's a phase they outgrow. If not, well, hmmm, I hadn't really considered what to do yet if this is something that continues for much longer."

I just nodded because I had no idea what to say to that. The extent of my mothering abilities was what I had learned on the job. And I seriously doubted Al's kids needed that sort of mothering.

She motioned for me to take a seat on the couch and followed, sitting at the end opposite me and using the arm to support her back as she brought her legs up on the couch. I mimicked her. "So you're a mom?"

Quiet hung in the air like an unwelcome specter.

"Do you have any…" "Would you like some…"

"…wine?" We both said at the same time and laughed together.

She jumped up from her seat and walked into the kitchen, quickly grabbing a bottle, corkscrew and two glasses. My eyes were glued to the swaying motion of her hips as she left and slowly work up to her face on her way back.

She uncorked the wine and left it on the table in front of us.

"You were watching me, weren't you?"

I chuckled and nodded. "Your spidey-sense tell you that, Counselor?

"I could always feel when your eyes were on me, Liv. Your eyes were..are..like an extra pair of hands. If my back was to you, I could feel them move over my body. Of course, usually they rested on my ass."

"Guilty as charged. But it's your fault. If you didn't have such a nice ass there wouldn't be anything for me to look at," I pleaded in my defense.

She reached forward and poured each of a glass of wine before taking up her previous position on the couch.

"So, I want to start from the beginning. Well, not the beginning, you obviously know the beginning. But the beginning you don't know," she rambled before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath and a huge gulp of her wine. "Get it together, Cabot. I think I need to start from the last night we spent together."

I sipped my wine and listened as she went over how she had been involved with that claims adjuster, Patrick, while she was in Wisconsin.

"When I left to come here for the trial, I never told him goodbye. And after it was over, the marshals had to move me again. Emily was killed in a car accident. He never knew I was pregnant. I didn't even know I was pregnant until I was five months along."

Suddenly, some things began to make sense and I sat up a bit straighter and put my empty glass down.

"So that night….when we….you were?" I couldn't even piece together complete sentences but I knew Alex would understand.

She furrowed her brow and that line between her eyebrows that had become so prominent from years of concentration seemed even deeper in the subtle lighting of her living room.

"You know how all over the place my cycle was. It was nothing for me to go two or three months without a period. I didn't think anything of it. I chalked the little bit of morning sickness I had up to the stress of being moved again and having to protect Antonio and myself."

I could only nod.

"It was until I felt them move. That was when I knew. God, Liv, I was so scared. I didn't know how I'd do it alone. And it wasn't just going to be me and the babies. There was Antonio. How was he going to deal with his new 'mom' being a mom to her own babies? And to know that they'd never know their father. I mean, it would have been one thing had we decided and used a donor," she blushed deeply at her admission and paused, looking up at me. "I had a lot of time on my hands. I romanticized our relationship quite a bit in my head to help me survive, Liv. I know the one time we briefly mentioned kids we were both opposed to it—you more adamantly than I and I knew that was your fear of being like your mom or your father than what you felt in your heart. In my dreams, we always picked someone who looked a little like you so that our babies would look like us."

I slid over to her and pulled her closer to me. I didn't need the distance between us to hear what she had been through. My arm around her shoulders, she continued.

"I can't believe I just told you that. You must think I'm a total head-case," she pulled away long enough to refill her glass and empty it again before settling back against me. "They were premature. So tiny. Ben had a headful of hair, but he was so weak. I think that's why he gives Allie such a hard time now—she must have hassled him in the womb. He spent two weeks in the hospital and she was home in under a week. Do you have any idea how many diapers newborns go through?"

"I imagine you went through twice as many with twins." I gave her a gentle squeeze and her hand fell on my thigh familiarly.

"It wasn't so bad. Definitely not as bad as I thought it would be. Antonio was amazing. He helped feed, change, wash—everything. Oh Liv, he's such a gentle soul. He's still so quiet. It troubles me sometimes that he's not a rambunctious, loud, troublesome pre-teen. But at the same time, I'm so thankful for it."

"He's been through a lot. He probably modeled how he deals with it based on how you've dealt with it—with strength and grace and dignity."

I kissed her temple and put my hand over hers on my thigh, lacing our fingers together. She leaned her head on my shoulder and I felt her relax.

"I wish you had been there."

"For three a.m. feedings and diaper detail? You're kidding, right? Do you really think I could have managed?"

She lifted her head slightly to look me in the eyes, "I think you would have managed for me. Or you would have at least tried. And that would have made all the difference. Seriously though, I wish you had been there with me for first steps, first words, potty training. I didn't have anyone I could share that with. And I love those memories—but there's no one that shares them with me."

"Then why didn't you call me when you came back?" I was hurt that she had invested so much time thinking about what it would have been like to have me there and how hollow she felt that I wasn't, yet when the opportunity did exist, she never seized it.

"What if you hadn't wanted it? The family? No doubt ever existed in my heart that you'd want me. I knew your love had never waned. I didn't hope it hadn't. I didn't pray it hadn't. I _knew_ it hadn't. And I hoped you wouldn't reject the idea of me coming home with someone else's children—my children. And I know how ridiculous this sounds now, but I was so scared of the possibility that you wouldn't be able to deal with a ready-made family, that I couldn't stand the idea of finding out if you could or not."

We sat in silence for a while, our fingers still laced together and her head still on my shoulder. Our breathing was in sync, something that I had always found great comfort in when we were together. I knew she was giving me time to process all that she had told me.

"I wish you had called—given me a chance to react." She started to pull away but I still her movements, holding her tighter. "But you didn't and I..we..can't go back and change that. You're a mom, Al. And I…"

She managed to pull away from me and turn to look me in the eyes, "And you're what, Liv? You can't deal with that?"

Tears were brimming in my eyes and I blinked rapidly to hold them back, shaking my head. "No," before I could say anything else she was moving further away from me.

"I see," she stated calmly, coolly.

"No, you don't. I wasn't done," I reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her back to me. "You're a mom, Al. And I…I'm still as deeply in love with you as the last time we were together. You being a mom didn't change anything. It never could."

Her blue eyes twinkled and before I could register what was happening, she was straddling me, her hands in my hair and our mouths locked in oral combat. I hadn't felt this alive in years and the woman I loved was making those barely there, subtle moaning noises that drove me up a wall. They were muffled by our mouths, still firmly fastened to each other.

I slipped my hands under her shirt and as soon as my fingers glanced over her skin, she shuddered and whimpered my name, "Oh, Liv."

My hands slid slowly over her rubs, higher until I palmed her breasts, weighing them carefully in my hands before bringing my thumbs up to brush up and down over her already hardened nipples.

Our kisses became even more fevered as she moved slowly against my lap, seeking firmer contact in the area that I could feel emanating warm, moist heat already.

She pulled away from my mouth and placed her hands on the back of the couch. Her movements against me were more fevered and her hair now cascaded around her face. Her eyes were blackened by lust and then closed as she concentrated on her breathing and on the sensations my hands were creating and the friction between us was causing.

I was so caught up in watching her and listening to her, that I hadn't heard the shuffle of little feet coming down the hallway.

"Mommy?"

The soft, sleep-heavy voice of a little boy broke through the hormone haze and as quickly as Alex had found herself in my lap, she was out of it.

"You, stay," she commanded as she hustled around the couch and picked up the little boy and walked down the hallway.

A few minutes later, she came back. Her lips were still swollen and her hair was a mess.

"I was wrong."

She froze and looked up at me like a deer caught in headlights. She didn't bother asking what I was wrong about, but I knew she was afraid of what my answer would be. Her shoulders began to sag and she began to physically transform in front of my eyes.

"You being a mom changes a lot. We definitely can't do anything unless it's behind a locked door because I do not want to explain to the kids what sex is. That's your job."


End file.
